Here is a technique for getting back nozzles. I had several adjacent nozzles out - serious banding! I called Chromatek and Shane told me to do the following:
1. Turn the printer off (this lets the heads sit in the ink - most likely loosening up the dried out heads) 2. After about 30 minutes turn the printer on and perform a strong clean.
This brought back most of the nozzles - and by the next morning we were able to get perfect print tests.
You don't have to switch the machine off, just make a "fill cap" procedure for 30 minutes.
However, this is not guaranteed to work in all situations - sometimes when you get the nozzles really stuck (haven't experienced it yet, because we run ours 24/7 so we never let them dry up) then you can buy something which is called "head recovery wipes" or something like that. You're supposed to just move the carriage to the middle of printing plate where you put a sponge with some wipe damp with solvent, so that when the carriage is over it, it tightly presses against the nozzle plates. But that requires buying some more stuff, it's probably expensive, so i can't really recommend that and i don't really know the procedure.
My trick is that sometimes when more nozzles are stuck, before i do the "fill cap" procedure, i pour a bit of cap cleaning fluid or other solvent to the individual caps, so that during the time when the caps are filled, there is some amount of solvent there. This should enhance the effect of that procedure.
Fill cap procedure? What do you mean when you say,pour a bit of cap cleaning fluid or other solvent to the individual caps,. Could you explain this in more detail?
The problem we are experiencing is that after printing about 8-10 inches the yellow fades out then the other colors a few inches further. I think that maybe when it just sitting there there is enough time to have an ink supply. but when it starts to run the ink in the heads cannot keep up over the distance. Does this sound like dry ink in the nozzles that may be blocking? Or do think it may be something else? For now I will try the Chromatek method and see if that will help.
if cap doesn't seal head perfectly (there can be many reasons for that) it want do good fill cap. for fill cap function you have to have vacuum (perfectly sealed head).
you can check if your fill cap function works fine (which is very important) by turning of machine. when you turn maschine by power button, machine automaticly do fill cap.
then you open machine (unscrew and take off all covers on capper side), lower manualy caping station. you do this by pulling rubber belt which is beneath and paralel with capping station.
pull heads away to wiping unit (but before pulling heads you have to lower capping station - if you don't do this and push heads away you will damage them!!!) - and then you will see if you have perfect seal of heads!
if everything is ok all caps should be full with ink! if it's not ok, cap(s) will be empty or half full!
if it's not ok try to investigate whats wrong - is caper deformed - is little rubber cap beneath caper ok - does your heads have dried ink on its surface and in this way stops caper to seal it... this is very important for your machine to work proparly...
if everything is OK or you cleared obvious problem, you can do next:
take of all ink form caps. fill caps (manualy) with solvent (cap fluid) - push heads back over caps - chek for alignmet (that every head is over its capper) - then manualy push up caping station to seal heads (with belt ofcourse). check if heads are sealed with caps.
in this way you are 100% sure that head is sealed and soaked with solvent.
close (covers) machine.
leave machine over night. tomorow morning turn machine on and do strong cleaning...
Thank you for your help. I 'm trying to get up to speed as fast as I can. We are trying to expand our market in Las Vegas, Nevada.We have one 64S we have been trying to push vehicle wraps. But I wonder what others are doing in other places? May I ask what type of work you produce on your 64S? From what you have seen what do you think it is best suited to?
